Couldn't find any answer to my question...

I looked around tankspot for a few days, trying to navigate through all the forums, gleaning what knowledge I could and whatnot, but couldn't find a single thread that addressed my question directly. Do druid tanks still need defensive rating? I mean it does more than simply make tank uncrittable; it increases avoidances, and lowers damage taken. I've always tanked with my warrior, and only recently found the time and motivation to try getting my druid up finally (she was lvl 20 for about 7 months), and I'd really like to give druid tanking a shot. I currently tank alongside my buddy, who also plays a warrior, in our guild which only has enough people for 10 mans, but as enjoyable as it is, I feel that we could do so much better if one of us was able to output a larger amount of dps when only one tank is necessary. And aside from the dps output, I simply think that being a druid has always been fun at lower levels, and I want to give it a shot for raiding for a change.

Also, how hard would it be for me to adjust to the druid tanking style, considering that I thouroughly enjoy tanking but have only ever done it as a warrior, with the exception of the Hellfire dungeons on my death knight.

Any help, or advice, is greatly appreciated. :)

Defense doesn't directly reduce your damage taken on hits that landed. It only gives you uncrit and avoidance. Currently There's no reasonable level of dodge% that diminishes to the point you'd be better served with defense rating.

Hm, I must have misread the tooltip on defense rating then. Thanks for the tip on it tho :D

Just to confirm, no, druid tanks do not need any defense - the base crit chant of a lvl 83 mob against a lvl 80 is (I believe) 5.8%, and you have an ability in the feral tree (sorry, forget the name) which reduces the chance for mobs to crit you by 6%.

5.6%, but you are correct about the talent taking care of that.

I love me druid tankz! I dont know how you'll enjoy it compared to being a warrior. I'm doing the opposite - levelling a warrior to see how it compares to druiding. Playing a warrior is mechanical in its feel and he tends to feel squishier to me. No self heals, no "turn to cat & sprint away", unlikely to have shadowmeld etc etc. The warrior cant even rez others after a wipe, he just has to lie there till some kind toon with a mana bar takes care of him :P I still prefer the druid for his awesome damage output in tank form & tank gear (#6/7 in damage in 25 mans), I love the survivability and enormous health pool of course (I survive the progession bosses when our warrs & pallies get one-shotted). Some people including myself think bears are currently broken: If you survive better than other tanks and do a ton more damage, while threat & aoe threat are never issues for a skilled player... why would you want to bring another tank to your raid? That the reason bears don't dominate the tanking game atm is because they've only been this OP for a couple of months and most people (traditional guilds with traditional prots) aren't gonna change overnight.... really I'm just trying to encourage you to try it out. Of course, the things I notice have everything to do with skill. Run with a bad bear tank and you'll think the opposite.

As we all know, you just dont need all your tanks all the time. You can put out great dps as a cat while still using the tank talents & tank glyphs with a simple change of gear (or even the same gear if you're desparate) We're all passionate about our own classes though; the druid is my main, my first wow character, and I love him to bits. That's a personal preference. Tankspot is mostly a warrior forum with a bit of pally thrown in. That's just the way it is, although I have noticed more non-warriors come here since wrath equalized tanks. There are plenty of great blogs & information out their for feral druids - just that the number of feral tanks is a lot smaller than the number of prot warrs so info can be harder to find. Lets stay I started a thread: "post your highest beserk numbers!" - how many druids would care enough to respond, even if we're reaching 9-10k dps for those 15 seconds? Pretty exciting stuff, but there just arent that many of us out there.

Finally, as a druid, you should rejoice in uncrittability via talents. You can spend your gems & enchants doing all kinds of other fun things: damage, health, expertise, hit, dodge - whatever you fancy. And you can wear specialist sets (resist, trash, stamina etc) without worrying about uncrittability.